In 1948, Moses Asch founded Folkways Records with a self-proclaimed mandate to record the sounds of the entire world. From the Sounds of North American Frogs to Speech After the Removal of the Larynx, Folkways documented the audible nooks and crannies of existence on hundreds of LPs produced by field recordists, scientists, and experimentalists probing the margins of the human soundscape. Seventy-five years later, electronic music duo Matmos have diced, looped, stretched, and recontextualized these recordings on their new album Return to Archive, which was assembled entirely from the so-called non-musical sounds released on Folkways. On just the album’s first track, dolphins, beetles, telephones, humans stretching the limits of their vocal cords, a shortwave radio, and metal balers co-mingle in a fantasia of sound both everyday and extraordinary. Each track on Return to Archive morphs its source material into something completely unexpected, honoring and expanding on Folkways’ legacy of sonic exploration. Featuring Evicshen and Aaron Dilloway.

Loraine James lets her influences run wild on her third Hyperdub volume, sampling DNTEL, Telefon Tel Aviv and Lusine on tracks that dig into her emotional core. Featuring guest appearances from Marina Herlop, keiyaA, Corey Mastrangelo, Eden Samara, George Riley and Contour.

An ideal roll call of Ulla, Nadia Khan, Newworldaquarium, Ben Bondy, Mister Water Wet, NAP, JR Chaparro, Haji K., and many more, help tuck Picnic’s eponymous LP beauty to bed with a sublime suite of remixes and alternate versions.
One of 2021’s lushest ambient sides, ‘Picnic’ is a proper friends and family affair helmed by the duo’s mdo & Ju Ca, a pair of Melbourne-based souls who share that region’s prevailing grasp of ambient warmth and elemental utility. Where their debut LP, proper, also included guest spots from the likes of Huerco S., The Humble Bee, Dntel, and DJ Paradise, this new 'Bonus' follows suit to infuse the far flung yet mutual spirits of the modern ambient rhizome, dialling in subtle reflections on the originals, as well as new collaborations, that diffuse and extend its pleasures into the gauzy mid-distance…

If you have an idea of Northern regions of the world or if you have travelled around Scandinavia then you already know something about Joel Tammik’s works. There’s a lot of space, small fragments and crispness, easily found in first chilly winter days or warm summer nights.
Joel Tammik began his musical journey at the beginning of the 90s playing bass guitar in different school bands. After Estonia’s emancipation and the collision of the iron curtain several cultures of western electronic music appeared on the local world of music and different raves took place in abandoned factory buildings. Around 1996 Joel met with the members of local jungle duo LU:K where he at first played the bass but some years later began also to compose tracks…

Picnic is the first full-length collaboration between Kansas City’s Ryan Loecker (aka mdo, co-founder of the C Minus label) and Melbourne, Australia’s Justin Cantrell (aka ju ca, founder of the Daisart label). Loecker came a little late to the Midwestern scene, releasing his first music in 2016 and forming C Minus in 2017. But the communal spirit of Secret Musik lives on in Picnic, which doubles as an international ambient summit welcoming Australia’s Daisart into the fold. Heavy on guest features, Picnic is a celebration of ambient music as a social phenomenon.
"Bunnyville" is built around what sounds like a bundle of necklaces being untangled, around which all manner of soupy effects slosh and swish. "Drops in the Water," a collaboration with Detroit artist Theodore Cale Schafer, is permeated with fiery crackles that emerge from a deep, droning house chord…